|
|
Two- and three-dimensional views of IMP-8 magnetometer data for
a pass through the bow shock (light blue shows the nominal surface) and
continuing through the magnetopause (violet) to the magnetotail.
Data gaps are evident, as are the enhancement of fields at the bow
shock,
rapid field turnings, and unusual magnetosheath fields, and the
organized
field in the northern tail lobe on the left side of the right
panel.
There is a possible double current sheet crossing in the tail near the
middle of the orbit. The views are complementary.
|
This figure shows a ViSBARD
view of
magnetic field vector data, colored by the field magnitude, viewed by
three
satellites. Glyphs along the projected path give density and
speed
information. All vectors are in the solar wind, but
magnetospheric
surfaces are added to show the scale. This is a region of field
reversals,
and these are seen both along each orbit and between spacecraft.
The insert (made with ViSBARD but added with Powerpoint) changes the background and glyph color table for clearer viewing and interpretation of the specific data section. |
 |
 |
This figure presents data
projected from four spacecraft (two nearly
coincident in the middle) for a solar-wind interplanetary shock with
two
inserts showing the same data from different angles. The structure of
the
shock front is visible in a way that is very difficult to see with line
plots.
|
| An overview of the orbits of 15 spacecraft (some obscured in the current view) over their entire mission lifetimes. Modeled bow shock and magnetopause surfaces and a properly rotating Earth with its magnetic pole provide the proper context. The user can examine both the extent of the spacecraft coverage and, by selecting a small time range for viewing, determine specific configurations of spacecraft useful for a given study. Furthermore, ViSBARD provides access to several data repositories so that the orbits and data can be retrieved from within the application. |  |
 |
In this visualization created from
ViSBARD screenshots, we see the magnetic field as measured from six
different satellites. The position of each spacecraft is marked by a
small color glyph (ACE = yellow, Cluster = dark blue, Geotail = green,
GOES 10 = red, Polar = light blue, Wind = purple). The direction of the
arrow signifies the direction of the magnetic field while the color
represents the intensity (red being the highest, blue the lowest). The
magnetic pole of the Earth is in yellow, and it rotates properly as the
animation proceeds. This view of the magnetic storm shows highly disturbed fields at geosynchronous orbit (GOES), many crossings of the 'magntotail current sheet' where the field changes sign and points at the opposite pole of the Earth, close encounters with the Earth (large red fields that are truncated to keep the arrows from becoming huge), and the entry from the back of the picture of Wind and Geotail through the bow shock (wire-frame) and magnetopause (sometimes visible as a transparent surface). Data for this animation was taken from a solar storm on October 7, 2002. Animator: Tom Bridgman / Scientific Visualization Studio |
| Three spacecraft ahead of the
Earth's
bow shock measure the magnetic field as it is carried by the solar wind
towards the Earth. Their positions as projected according to the flow
speed are noted with the small glyph (Wind = yellow, Geotail = blue,
IMP-8 = green). The spacecraft actually move very little over the time
interval shown, but a spatial picture emerges when we use a knowledge
of the wind velocity to spread the vectors out according to how they
flowed past the point of observation. Arrows on the satellite glyphs
indicate the magnitude and direction of the magnetic field while the
color also represents the intensity (red being the highest, blue the
lowest). As the wind flows, we can rapidly obtain information on the extended geometry of convected structures. The wire-frame at the left is a representation of the Earth's bow shock (about 100 Earth radii across in what is shown) that shows where the Sun's magnetic field would begin to be affected by that the Earth. (The effect of the interaction is not shown.) Animator: Tom Bridgman / Scientific Visualization Studio |
 View the movie: 512x288 MPEG-1 5MB 1280x720 MPEG-2 86MB View the image: 1280x720 TIFF 2MB |
 |
Data from Lyon-Fedder-Mobarry
global magnetohydrodynamic model simulation in ViSBARD using orbits
from proposed MagCon mission. Animator: Ryan Boller / Information Systems Division |
More details on production of these movies can be found in the
ViSBARD
area of the
Scientific Visualization Studio:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/search/Keywords/ViSBARD.html
